as active
as ever. His hair had changed from black to white since last we met.
When I gave some edifying details, he would say: "God be praised. I am
so glad of what you tell me. Thanks be to God." And he called the
attention of a young priest at the other end of the room: "Listen! Hear
what they are doing in the South for the school-children, and the waifs
and street arabs. And all that is done for the sick and the prisoners.
Oh, blessed be God! How happy all this makes me."

I felt as though I were listening to St. Alfonso, so irresistably did
this remind me of him. I was no longer among the crisp snows of New
Hampshire, that had crackled beneath my feet that morning. Fancy had
transported me to the genial clime of Naples. I stood by the bed-ridden
Bishop of St. Agatha, in the old Redemptorist's Convent at Pagani, and
listened to the touching dialogue between Mauro, the royal architect,
and the saint: "And the churches in the city of Naples, are they much
frequented?"--"Oh, yes, Monsignor, and you cannot imagine the good that
results from this. All classes, especially the working people, crowd
them, and we have saints even among the coachmen." At these words the
saint rose from his recumbent position, and cried out in tones of joy
and triumph: "Saintly coachmen at Naples! Gloria Patri." He could not
sleep for joy at this intelligence, but during the night would
frequently call for his attendant: "You heard what Don Mauro said?
Saints among the coachmen at Naples! What do you think of that?"
Associated in our mind with the great St. Alfonso, we keep this holy
priest, whom Bishop Bradley so justly styled, "The pioneer of Catholic
education in New England." His flock universally regarded him as a
saint, and a great saint. And, in all humility, and in perfect
submission to the decrees of Holy Church, the writer is able to say, of
her own knowledge and observation, that this humble, hard-working,
mortified Irish priest, William MacDonald, practised in a high, a very
high, degree, every virtue which we venerate in the saints of God. I
never met a holier soul. I could not imagine him guilty of the smallest,
wilful fault. I feel more inclined to pray to him than for him; it seems
incredible that he should have anything to expiate in purgatory. May his
successors walk in his footsteps, and his children never forget the
lessons he taught them more by example than by word. May our friendship,
a great grace to me, be renewed _in